Mosiah 17:2 Textual Variants

Royal Skousen
for he knew concerning the iniquity which Abinadi had [spoken > NULL 1| ABCDEFGHIJKLMNOPQRST] testified against them

Here Oliver Cowdery initially wrote had spoken in 𝓟; then he immediately crossed out the spoken and wrote inline testified. Thus 𝓞 must have read had testified. Note, in particular, the similar language in Alma 8:25: “yea and to testify against them concerning their iniquities”. Since either spoken or testified will work here in Mosiah 17:2, there would have been no motivation to emend spoken to testified except that 𝓞 read testified.

Summary: Accept Oliver Cowdery’s immediate correction in Mosiah 17:2: “concerning the iniquity which Abinadi had testified against them”.

Analysis of Textual Variants of the Book of Mormon, Part. 3

References